Wednesday, November 3, 2010

This Dilapidated Farmhouse, Part 2

This is the second in what will likely be a gargantuan, mega-series spanning several decades.

Well, maybe not decades, but certainly (and sadly) years.

But, steady as she goes! We're making progress on a few things. The electricity to the back is almost ready to be hooked up. I just have to install the backyard lights and then have the electrician come out. The project to re-do the roof overhang on the north side of the house has been started as of last night. As a more short-term project I have weatherproofed all the west and north-facing windows, both inside and out on the first floor. They are the old, original windows, so they don't keep the heat in well. Hopefully this will help.

My sister-in-law also gave me lots and lots of plants when I went back out to Colorado, so I have many gorgeous irises and walking onion bulbs to plant, as well as a beautiful little spruce tree to plant. I really wanted a nice big evergreen up front on the south lawn, so I think this tree will fit the bill. It will eventually reach 70' in height, so I think that's the perfect spot for it!

I also want to reroof the pump house and smokehouse before the weather hits. They are small jobs I can do without much help and once they are roofed I'll paint them to match my horse shelter. All the outbuildings will be gray with white trim, and the house will be yellow with white and navy trim. I might have to throw some navy on the outbuildings to tie them all in together, but I think it will eventually look like a pretty nice place.

I've also had some really fun ideas for the inside of the house.

We're moving the bathroom, so Dad suggested I make the current bathroom into an office, but I really wanted to just knock out the wall and make the kitchen nice and big instead. However, that's a supporting wall, which means mega-bucks to knock it out, so I thought about it a lot and came up with an even better solution--a pantry!!!

It will basically be set in there just like this picture above, on an angle, with cabinets to the south of it. The cabinets on the north (left) will actually run along a wall further north, up to the north wall, then along that wall to complete the look.

Last night while weatherproofing I also had to cover the old front farmhouse door, as we never use it and it also leaks warm air like a barn door. It will be replaced eventually by sliding glass doors that will go out onto a porch. However, this old door is very neat, all carved in a victorian style with the original flourished hardware, so I hate to discard such an interesting fixture.

Then it hit me--it can be my pantry door!! It has a glass window in it that I can frost and etch something nice into, and along with sanding and refinishing it, it will be perfect!!

It's situations like this, when ideas just come together, that I love about renovating an old house. It's fun to try to keep the character intact by reusing old items in a new way.

I also found a very neat idea for a center island:

An old farmhouse table!

This table below is how I envision my breakfast nook. The right is the north wall of my kitchen, and the far windows to the left will open out onto my screened in porch. I think it could be a beautiful little sitting area. The formal dining room is on the southeast corner of the first floor, so caddy-corner to the kitchen, but I'm thinking about mixing it up and switching the existing dining and living rooms.

I'm always open for new ideas!!

This picture below is what I'm going to work towards making the back porch into this winter.

It so happens that this is the exact existing layout of the current back porch. The porch was damaged when the roof leaked years ago, so I plan on gutting it and replacing the ceiling, paneling and floor this winter as a little side-project. I want to do it all myself and teach myself some more carpentry skills. I can already lay flooring and install light fixtures, but re-paneling and the ceiling will be new experiences I can learn in this small space and then hopefully carry on that newly-acquired knowledge to the upstairs next summer!

The downstairs bath is still in the works as well, but we're waiting for a carpenter to come out and build the doorway. I suck at installing doors (I already learned the hard way), so this is a job for a pro. In the meantime, I've found this vanity which I think would be perfect for the downstairs bath.

VERY old farm-house-ish, but somewhat contemporary as well. In either case, it will also be fairly forgiving and not get dirty-looking easily, which is a definite requirement of the downstairs bath.

When I look around for ideas for the rooms I'm doing, I inevitably find pictures I love for rooms that will be worked on in the years to come.

A bedroom:

Aren't those knotty pine floors gorgeous? I love the way the window-nook frames out the bed so perfectly--it's very welcoming.

A living room:

I love, love, love the industrial feel of the large clock juxtaposed with the warmth of the fireplace.

A guest room:

It's all about symmetry, baby.

Thanks for letting me share all my excitement about the house. It's been a challenge to live in a work-in-progress, and I've had to given up a lot of comforts in hope that they will pay off in the end. I think it really will, and I see that hope materialize a bit every single day.

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My Life

I love my life: my loving husband, my two adorable step-kids, my critters, and the great outdoors. Along the way I've been blessed with wonderful friends and family to help me in my journey.

Here's you'll find the smorgasbord of random happenings that is my life: everything from my journeys off the beaten path, to renovating old, dilapidated furniture, to my everlasting search for better health, to my propensity for trying new things.

My life isn't how I planned, but I wouldn't change a moment of it. I used to say I wanted an average life, but now I see that was never meant for me. I have learned to embrace the chaos, and this blog is my way of sharing my journey through the pandemonium that is my life.